Working hard to make sure teachers are inspiring the youth of tomorrow.
Please listen to the teachers, Stop killing tomorrow by focusing on test scores and not students.
I am clearing out our family office to make a bedroom for my seven year old son Gavin, who has been sharing a room with his 11 year old brother. I came across this picture of me and my dad. That is me on his right with the life jacket on. My father passed away in 1988, this is not how I remember him. During the 17 years I had with my father, I rarely spent time with him. He was a passionate physician. He worked 7 days a week for what seemed to be 20 hours a day. He made time for his children when he could. Always tried to make it home for dinner but more often than not his meal ended up sitting in the microwave till he made it home after our bed time. Mom was left to take care of us as he worked hard to be the caregiver for those that needed his medical skills. Often traveling with his patients most in need to hospitals in larger cities where they could get better care, since we lived in a small rural town in Illinois (Quincy).
I remember patients of his stopping by our house to drop off firewood, baked goods and produce as payment for services rendered. He explained that his patients needed care, their insurance didn’t cover services and this was all they could afford. He left a profitable clinic practice to run his own private practice because he disagreed with their practice of ordering unneeded tests that the insurance covered. He traveled all over the country to learn more from other doctors to be the best he could be.
As I reflect on my memories of my father, I see myself evolving into him. The good and bad all are showing up.
Since father was a third generation doctor, many in the family applied pressure for me to purse the profession. I resisted because I didn’t want my fathers life of being consumed by his profession. 27 years latter and I see it has happened despite my career choice. Like my father’s passion drove him to learn more and raise his voice in medicine, my passion in education has taken me all over the country and raising my voice for change in education. Being a Lead Fellow for Michigan Educator Voice Fellowship has been rewarding. Helping teachers raise their voice and share their passions needs to happen.
As a father I want a better education system for my 3 wonderful children. I just need to remember to find the balance that my father failed to have with me. I need to take breaks from my passion to spend quality time with my children. Dad did take some breaks, mainly in the summer but they aren’t the memories. I need to remember to take breaks all year round to make the best memories.
Evolving into my father isn’t a bad thing, like all of us he had great qualities and some flaws. His work ethic legacy lives on inside of me. I just need to remember to past the best qualities on to my children, to leave a legacy for them. I want them to remember our fun times, not just me working.
It is time for ALL in education to state their beliefs. Education is saturated with interest groups; ranging from teacher unions, administrative associations, to non-profit think tanks, parent groups and for profit companies. ALL of us know we can do better. Most of these organizations have similar belief systems, but we are running parallel paths attempting to arrive at the same location. Our message often gets blurred in the public eyes. When we disagree, rhetoric takes over our focus and progress is stifled. Stakeholders need to start to work together for our students or our PUBLIC education system we know, value and cherish in American will crumble.
A few recent events have greatly impacted my thinking. First I saw the documentary Most Likely To Succeed, A must for ALL who care about education. It tells the story of what education SHOULD be instead of what it has turned into due to the unintended consequences of poor legislative policies.
Most Likely to Succeed Trailer from One Potato Productions on Vimeo.
If the trailer peaks your interest find a viewing near you. Next viewing in Michigan is at Fraser HS Oct. 29 6:30 PM where I will be to discuss a plan for the next steps in education. Second I attended the Association Of Middle Level Education Conference in Columbus Ohio. AMLE base all of their work on their core beliefs which are clearly written down in their position paper: This We Believe. The belief statement guide every session at the conference and all that their organization focuses their work. In a conversation with a friend while reflecting that Michigan and the USA lack a clear belief statement, a friend pointed me toward Alfie Kohn’s recent post: To Change What We Do, Consider What We Believe.
What do we collectively believe in education?
What if all the stakeholder groups could come together and clearly state OUR collective beliefs in education. Our beliefs for students, educations, and community and their roles in education. We might not all agree int he same path to the belief, but I am sure we COULD create a common, collaborative, extensive belief statement. Sure some of my readers are saying this is a mission statement that districts have. Our beliefs have more depth. This collective belief statement would guide our policies. ANY educational policy introduced would have to address a CORE COLLECTIVE belief, not just be on someones agenda.
HOW TO START: Write down our beliefs
We believe all students can learn. We believe they learn in different ways and at different rates. How do our policies reflect theses beliefs?
We believe that teachers should be highly skilled practitioners, the top of their class. Skilled and passionate about their profession. How do our funding policies make this happen?
We believe that community involvement in our schools will make them successful. In what ways is this encouraged by policy?
What are your beliefs? Please use form to add them so we can make a belief statement for education!
How does your school celebrate a successful completion of the week? At ours we have started a dancing tradition! Students work hard in classes to reach learning targets, their hard work needs to be celebrated as a community. Grades are individual accomplishments that show learning. Some families celebrate these grades by going out to dinner or reward grades by giving money for the number of A’s on a report card. These celebrations don’t happen at a high frequency, 4 time per year at most.
Our new principal decided we needed more visible celebrations IN SCHOOL. After a hard weeks work we dance out the last 10 minutes of our Fridays. On Wednesday a survey is posted and shared with students and staff to ask for a song to inspire our dance moves. At 3:00 PM announcements are made to remind students of coming events. Then the music comes on the PA, students and staff get up out of their seats and GROVE to the music. The hallways fill up with smiles and movement. Their is no better way for a student to end the day than dancing with a smile out the door.
This small celebration has breathed new life and spirit into our building. Office referrals are down and smiles are up! Maybe one of these days we will have live music or be on the Ellen Show, but for now we love moving to the tunes and having fun as a community!
Schools seem caught up in competition these days. When I was a student the competition was left for the sports fields and academic clubs like Chess Club, Quiz Bowl and Science Olympiad. These competitions promoted school spirit, pride and showed off student talents to the community. Competition is natural in between individuals, helping one strive to grow. This allows us to see if we are measuring up with others. Students feel pride with victory and return to practice hard in the face of defeat.
Now days schools are competing in more places. Since school of choice laws and for profit charters have popped up on every corner schools are competing for students, funding, rankings and staff. This competition is different than before, not friendly or for local pride but for survival. Similar to two rival businesses competing for consumers dollars. Is this new type of competition good for education?
District rush to be the first with a technology tool to market to students, many have forgotten to train staff and research best proposals. Money is spent on radio, billboard and television adds to lure students into choosing their school. Crafty vision statements and names have been used to make one school seem better than another. Wealthy district lure poorer districts top staff away by marginal increases in pay but hope for a future. It seems like we are running education like a highly competitive business.
Shouldn’t districts be collaborating? The majority of school funding comes from state school aid. All schools have the same goal to educate all students that walk through the doors. Should districts valuable financial resources be spent in competition as teachers re-create lessons that are being taught through-out the state? Wouldn’t we all be better served if lesson plans were shared. Instead of districts spend time creating their own PD each district could share their expertise with each other. Students would stay put, building strong schools in every community instead of leaving some districts abandoned.
Let’s make all schools succeed through district collaboration, leaving the competitions to the sports fields.
As states create laws to hold teachers accountable for students learning, educators all over the country are getting nervous. Test scores are now making up a higher percentage of teacher evaluations. In some states up to 50% of a teachers evaluation will be base upon ONE score on a standardized test. It seems logical to a non-educator that if the school’s goal is for students to learn then they should do well on these tests. Is it this simple or should teacher be nervous?
Teaching and learning are two different things that are closely related. Teaching involves presenting ideas to students for them to learn; learning is excepting these ideas and putting them into practice. Teaching is like an engine and learning is like the tires on a car. The engine provides the power for the wheels to move. But there are many parts (variables) that can cause the car not to go. Gears, drive-shafts, axles and rims can all stop the car from going forward even when the engine is running perfectly. Teaching can be great in a classroom but the student can have many other factors in their lives that inhibit learning. Illnesses, divorce of parents, death in the family and poverty are just a few issues that can slow down student’s learning in our classrooms. Try as the engine might, movement may not occur at expected rate. On the other side of the coin, the engine can be running poorly, but the car still moves smoothly. At times despite of poor teaching many students learn on their own. Just like the car rolling down the hill due to gravity. The teaching engine has had no impact on the growth, but the students grows due to inspiration and hard work.
Critics argue that nervous teacher don’t want to work hard to get results. “I taught it, but he/she didn’t learn it” is the quote often used to describe this attitude. Make it relevant and rigorous, critics argue, that this is the key for students success. Are test relevant to students if they are being used to judge the teacher? Is the learning relevant to students where education is not shown as valued in our society? Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg are always introduced as college drop-outs. Film and sports stars are role models and are held in high esteem.Jobs that seem to require little or no formal education. On the other hand educators are constantly mocked in the media. Even our politicians argue about whether global climate change is a scientific fact. From our students vantage point education is not relevant. They know a diploma is needed but not the skills that a diploma represents. Our schools are a reflection of Our SOCIETY.
YES, educators are nervous because it feels like WE are the only ones making education relevant today. We can’t do our jobs alone. We need society to step up and make education a priority everywhere like it is in schools!
It can’t be educators vs the world anymore!
Sweat to Inspire 